On the morning of July 18, 2014, 41-year-old Florida State law professor Dan Markel dropped his boys off at preschool, hit the gym, and headed home to his quiet, tree-canopied neighborhood. Within seconds of pulling into his garage, two .38-caliber bullets fired from point-blank range were lodged in his brain. His brutal slaying defied explanation.

Years before the name Alex Murdaugh was splashed across every major media outlet in America, local South Carolina journalist Mandy Matney had an instinct that something wasn’t right in the Lowcountry. The powerful Murdaugh dynasty had dominated rural South Carolina for generations. No one dared to cross them.

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history. Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.

Jill and Derick knew a normal life wasn’t possible for them. As a star on the popular TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting, Jill grew up in front of viewers who were fascinated by her family’s way of life. She was the responsible, second daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle’s nineteen kids; always with a baby on her hip and happy to wear the modest ankle-length dresses with throat-high necklines.

Ever since a childhood visit to Washington, DC, Cassidy Hutchinson aspired to serve her country in government. Raised in a working-class family with a military background, she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. Despite having no ties to Washington, Hutchinson landed a vital position at the center of the Trump White House.

From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic.

On October 22, 1989, in the small town of St. Joseph, Minnesota, eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped at gunpoint. Twenty-seven years later, Danny Heinrich led authorities to the boy’s remains. What lies between is the riveting story of the search for Jacob, told by his mother, Patty. With down-to-earth candor, she details the investigation as it unfolds, discusses her family’s struggles, and shows how she maintained her energy and optimism.

Teacher and former rugby league player Chris Dawson appeared to have it all - a loving family and a beautiful home in Sydney's Northern Beaches. But in the summer of 1982 his wife Lynette disappeared and not long afterwards Dawson married a much younger woman, a former student. Less than a decade later this young woman escaped the marriage and went to the police to record her suspicions that Dawson had been involved in Lynette's disappearance. A homicide investigation followed but got nowhere until 1998, when Detective Sergeant Damian Loone was handed Lynette's file.

Former CNN/HLN anchor and veteran broadcast journalist Susan Hendricks takes an investigative deep-dive into the still-unsolved double homicide of two teens in Delphi, Indiana—and its lasting impact on the community. In Down the Hill, Hendricks digs deeper in into the mystery that has captivated our nation for years, exploring the family's enduring resilience and advocacy, as well as the rippling impact the case has had on not just Delphi, but the very heart of the American heartland.

Was Jason the monster who bludgeoned his beautiful wife to death, leaving his toddler alone for hours to walk through her blood? If so - would he get away with it? Murder on Birchleaf Drive documents the gripping tale of a family’s marathon quest for justice, confounding crime scene evidence, the persistence of law enforcement officers, and riveting courtroom combat.

When police in Rexburg, Idaho perform a wellness check on seven-year-old J.J. Vallow and his sister, sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan, both children are nowhere to be found. Their mother, Lori Vallow, gives a phony explanation, and when officers return the following day with a search warrant, she, too, is gone. As the police begin to close in, a larger web of mystery, murder, fanaticism and deceit begins to unravel. Vallow’s case is sinuously complex. As investigators prod further, they find the accused Black Widow has an unusual number of bodies piling up around her.

In this fascinating account, Ann Rule delivers a tour de force: a whirlwind of misguided love, denial, guilt, and passions out of control; a series of brilliantly manipulated crimes; the bizarre and horrifying tale of two families brought to ruin; and, at the center of it all, the heartless, supremely selfish sociopath whose evil hid behind soft words and gentle manners, but who destroyed—without mercy—those who loved her.

On February 13, 2017, two Indiana teenagers, Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, went for a walk in the woods near the abandoned Monon High Bridge. They never returned home.

In this unrelenting real-life drama of three wealthy families connected by marriage and murder, Bledsoe recounts the shocking events, obsessive love, and bitter custody battles that led toward the bloody climax that took nine lives.

After a childhood spent on Hollywood film sets, Meghan Markle fought hard for stardom. But even when she landed her breakthrough role on Suits, her dream of worldwide celebrity remained elusive until she met the man who would change her life—Prince Harry. Their whirlwind romance culminated with Meghan’s ultimate fairy tale ending: their 2018 wedding at Windsor Castle. Finally, the world was her stage. It seemed that the dizzying success of the wedding between the new Duke and Duchess of Sussex marked the beginning of a fresh era for the British Royal Family.

The death of promising young pediatric AIDS researcher Eric Miller stunned the Raleigh, North Carolina, community, largely because of the horrific way he was killed. For months, Eric was slowly tortured as arsenic consumed his body. No one thought that Eric Miller's wife, Ann - an attractive, demure, educated scientist - could be capable of such a horrible crime. No one except for veteran homicide investigator Chris Morgan, a man in the twilight of his career. But from the moment Morgan saw the 30-year-old widow in the police department interview room, he knew he was seeing pure evil.

In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: The country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment.

In 1959, Olathe, Kansas was made famous by the murder of the Clutter family and Truman Capote's ground-breaking book on the crime, In Cold Blood. But fewer know that Olathe achieved notoriety again in 1982, when a member of Olathe's growing Evangelical Christian population, a gentle man named David Harmon, was bludgeoned to death while sleeping - the force of the blows crushing his face beyond recognition.

In Tough Cases, judges from different kinds of courts in different parts of the country write about the case that proved most difficult for them to decide. Some of these cases received international attention: the Elián González case in which Judge Jennifer Bailey had to decide whether to return a seven-year-old boy to his father in Cuba after his mother drowned trying to bring the child to the United States, or the Terri Schiavo case in which Judge George Greer had to decide whether to withdraw life support from a woman in a vegetative state over the wishes of her parents.

From the outside looking in, Jennifer Pan seemed like a model daughter living a perfect life. The ideal child, the one her immigrant parents saw, was studying to become a pharmacist at the University of Toronto. But there was a dark, deceptive side to the angelic young woman. In reality, Jennifer spent her days in the arms of her high-school sweetheart, Daniel. In an attempt to lead the life she dreamed of, she would do almost anything. For many years she led this double life. But when her father discovered her web of lies, his ultimatum was severe. And so, too, was her revenge.

As an exotic dancer at The Great Alaskan Bush Company in Anchorage, Mechele Hughes Linehan knew how to captivate men. Three of them were convinced she was engaged to them. Then one spring morning in 1996, one man, Kent Leppink, was found in the snow, shot in the head....Days before his death, Kent had removed Mechele's name from his million-dollar life insurance policy. He wrote a letter to his family stating that, should he meet foul play, Mechele would likely be among those involved. But she wasn't charged with Kent's death. She married a doctor, moved to Olympia, Washington, and began a new life.

For 20 years Daniel Paquette's murder in New Hampshire went unsolved. It remained a secret between two high school friends until Eric Windhurst's arrest in 2005. What was revealed was a crime born of adolescent passion between Eric and Daniel's stepdaughter, Melanie - redefining the meaning of loyalty, justice, and revenge.

Fearless lawyer, feminist, activist, television and radio commentator, warrior, advocate, and winner, Gloria Allred is all of these things and more. Voted by her peers as one of the best lawyers in America, and described by Time as "one of the nation's most effective advocates of family rights and feminist causes", Allred has devoted her career to fighting for civil rights across boundaries of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and social class.

Worshippers stream out of an Midwestern synagogue after sabbath services, unaware that only a hundred yards away, an expert marksman and avowed racist, antisemite and member of the Ku Klux Klan, patiently awaits, his hunting rifle at the ready. A riveting, cautionary tale rooted in history that continues to echo today, The Killer's Shadow is a terrifying and essential exploration of the criminal personality in the vile grip of extremism and what happens when rage-filled speech evolves into deadly action and hatred of the “other" is allowed full reign.

The Netflix series Making a Murderer quickly became a huge hit, with over 19 million viewers in the US in the first 35 days. The series left many viewers with the opinion that Steven Avery - a man falsely imprisoned for almost 20 years on a rape charge - was railroaded into prison a second time by a corrupt police force and district attorney's office. Viewers were outraged, and hundreds of thousands demanded a pardon for Avery. The chief villain of the series: Ken Kratz, the special prosecutor who headed the investigation and prosecution.

Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.

Ella Broden is living a double life. By day, Ella works as a buttoned-up attorney on some of the city's most grueling cases. By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan. No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she's not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she's sold her first novel, Ella couldn't be more thrilled...until she gets a call that her sister's gone missing.

A seemingly perfect world held an even more unlikely killer... Julie Keown had a great job, financial security, and a perfect husband who was attending Harvard Business School. But after Julie suddenly died, and doctors discovered she’d been poisoned with the main ingredient in antifreeze, her parents began to suspect that her husband, James, was not so perfect. This blow-by-blow account shows how investigators and state police unraveled James Keown’s chilling web of deceit.

Claire Griffith has it all, a thriving career, a gorgeous boyfriend, glamorous friends. She always knew she was destined for more than the life her conservative parents preached to her. Arriving in Los Angeles flat broke, she has risen to become a popular fitness coach and social media influencer. Having rebranded herself as Cleo Ray, she stands at the threshold of realizing her biggest dreams. One summer day, Cleo and a woman named Beck Alden set off in a canoe on a serene mountain lake. An hour later, Beck is found dead in the water, and Cleo is missing.

In Race Against Time, Mitchell takes listeners on the twisting, pulse-racing road that led to the reopening of four of the most infamous killings from the days of the Civil Rights Movement, decades after the fact. His work played a central role in bringing killers to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, and the Mississippi Burning case. Mitchell reveals how he unearthed secret documents and found long-lost suspects and witnesses, building up evidence strong enough to take on the Klan.

On the morning of July 18, 2014, 41-year-old Florida State law professor Dan Markel dropped his boys off at preschool, hit the gym, and headed home to his quiet, tree-canopied neighborhood. Within seconds of pulling into his garage, two .38-caliber bullets fired from point-blank range were lodged in his brain. His brutal slaying defied explanation.

Years before the name Alex Murdaugh was splashed across every major media outlet in America, local South Carolina journalist Mandy Matney had an instinct that something wasn’t right in the Lowcountry. The powerful Murdaugh dynasty had dominated rural South Carolina for generations. No one dared to cross them.

12/14/2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School Newtown, Connecticut We remember the numbers: 20 children and 6 adults, murdered in a place of nurture and trust. We remember the names: Teachers like Victoria Soto, who lost her life protecting her students. A shooter named Adam Lanza. And we remember the questions: Outraged conjecture instantly monopolized the worldwide response to the tragedy, while the truth went missing. Here is the definitive journalistic account of Newtown.

Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Anne Luera, Guiselda Hernandez, and Janelle Ortiz were four marginalized women striving to make ends meet as sex workers. They looked out for one another. But they would soon share a connection that none of them could have imagined. When Melissa was found dead, the other three women were on edge but assumed they were safe. Twelve days later, they too were dead and police had detained an unlikely suspect—Juan David Ortiz, a ten-year veteran of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Chelsea King was a popular high school senior, an outstanding achiever determined to make a difference. Fourteen-year-old Amber Dubois loved books and poured her heart into the animals for which she cared. Treasured by their families and friends, both girls disappeared in San Diego County, just eight miles and one year apart. The community's desperate search led authorities to John Albert Gardner, a brutal predator hiding in plain sight. Now Pulitzer-nominated author Caitlin Rother delivers an incisive, heartbreaking true-life thriller that touches our deepest fears.

In the early morning hours of August 13, 2018, Shanann Watts was dropped off at her Frederick, Colorado, home by a colleague after returning from a business trip. It was the last time anyone would see her alive. By the next day, Shanann and her two young daughters, Bella and Celeste, had been reported missing, and her husband, Chris Watts, was appearing on the local news, pleading for his family's safe return. But Chris Watts already knew that he would never see his family again. Less than 24 hours after his desperate plea, Watts made a shocking confession to police.

Outside the dining hall of the Alpine Manor nursing home, there is a sign that reads, "This is Grand Rapids, Michigan", a reminder for those who can no longer trust their own minds. For months, Cathy Wood has fed these residents, bathed them, and even moistened their eyes with artificial tears. To her, they live in a state worse than death - and she has decided to relieve them of their pain. Wood and her lover, Gwen Graham, make a pact to kill those whom they were hired to care for.

Travis Alexander was a handsome, hard-working, practicing Mormon who lived in Mesa, Arizona. His good looks and easygoing manner made him popular with everyone, especially the ladies. So when he was found with a bullet wound in the face and his throat slashed, the brutal murder sent shock waves throughout his community. Who could have done something so sinister? But soon a suspect was singled out-Jodi Arias. A beautiful, aspiring photographer, Jodi had been in a long-distance relationship with Travis the year before.

On Halloween night, 1828, in the West Port district of Edinburgh, Scotland, a woman sometimes known as Madgy Docherty was last seen in the company of William Burke and William Hare. Days later, police discovered her remains in the surgery of the prominent anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. Docherty was the final victim of the most atrocious murder spree of the century. Together with their accomplices, Burke and Hare would be accused of killing 16 people over the course of 12 months in order to sell the corpses as "subjects" for dissection.

On the morning of September 26, 1974, the body of Fern Cowen Rodgers was discovered on the floor of her home in Searcy, Arkansas. The 68-year-old socialite was murdered, sometime in the night, by two bullets fired into her head.